IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula (Min Xie)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: IC 1396

IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula, Min Xie

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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula

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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula

It's has been 6 months. Many things changed. This is the first subject I did since February.

The painful struggle was all about the AVX mount - I just can't get rid of the slightly oval shaped start (definitely not elongated). One after another frustrated nights - I sent it back to Celestron and luckily, I got a good copy back. Now with enhanced guiding - I got peak RA error only 0.43.

During this time, I decided to give up on using camera lens (Nikon 300mm/f4.0) as my main imaging telescope and replaced the guiding system as well. Now here I am:

- William Optics GT-81 II / Flat6A-II / Camera Angle Rotator

- Primaluce Lab Sesto Senso Focusing Motor

- QHYCCD QHYOAG-S

- Minix Z83-4 now mounted on top of the GT-81. The cable management is totally redesigned.

The biggest change - I switched from APT to SGP for session automation. It was so magical. IC 1396 was the first target I attempted with fully automatic session (except I did the PA and set the camera angle). The sequence executed for 7 hours and gave me 4.5 hours of data back (H/S/O integration time ratio - 100/72/81). The integration time is not enough - especially for the SII and OIII, their time should be at least doubled. Too much noise noticed during post-processing.

Also, the H-Alpha version is uploaded as well - Really like the details and depth.

This is just the beginning...

Final
Original
B

ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
AAA : Astronomes et Astrographes Amateurs
Southern Hemisphere Astro
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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2231100
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula

IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula

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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula

IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk Nebula

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